New, Terrifying, Bipartisan Bill

Post Reply New Topic

It's a bill that increases the definition of Antisemitism making it illegal to criticize Israel for it's genocidal campaign towards Palestinians so they can continue it unopposed. This will make it easier to label protesters as terrorists so police can crackdown on demonstrations even if they are peaceful. That's the first step in removing our freedom of movement. Our U.S. Government knows that Israel is undoubtedly performing atrocities that would make the Nazis blush. They just don't care nor does the military industrial complex nor the big corporations that fund our candidates.

Last edited by Cornflake on 10 Jun 2024, 5:50 am, edited 1 time in total.: Adjusted topic title to reflect the content

If they want to crack down on terrorists, why don't they start with the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Moms for Liberty, et al.

Police cracking down on terrorists? In the red states, they *are* the terrorists!

I haven't watched the video, but my understanding is that the bill is bipartisan and passed in the House and would have to also pass in the Senate and then be signed by Biden to become law. It's not "Biden's bill."

We Americans have been raised to believe in a conflict there has to be white hats against black hats, good guys versus bad guys. The reality is, both sides in most conflicts are, to one extent or another, neither wholly good or wholly bad.
That said, I don't like having my speech limited by the law. If some bigot says something offensive, let good people fight his or her words with arguments, rather than having the law step in.

May 2, 2024; WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed legislation Wednesday that would establish a broader definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education to enforce anti-discrimination laws, the latest response from lawmakers to a nationwide student protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war.

The proposal, which passed 320-91 with some bipartisan support, would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal anti-discrimination law that bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics or national origin.  It now goes to the Senate where its fate is uncertain.

Action on the bill was just the latest reverberation in Congress from the protest movement that has swept university campuses.  Republicans in Congress have denounced the protests and demanded action to stop them, thrusting university officials into the center of the charged political debate over Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war was launched in October, after Hamas staged a deadly terrorist attack against Israeli civilians.

If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the bill would broaden the legal definition of antisemitism to include the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” Critics say the move would have a chilling effect on free speech throughout college campuses.

Read the Complete and Unedited Article  HERE 

Note that (1) this is only a proposal, and (2) 320 Republicans and 91 Democrats voted in favor of the proposal.

This is NOT "Biden's Bill".  The title of this thread is false and misleading.  I hope a mod will correct it.

This doesn't make it illegal to criticise Israeli policy. Rather, it makes criticism of Israel that targets it for its Jewishness antisemitic.

While I agree that applying a different standard to a Jewish state than to other is antisemitic, I'm not sure that's relevant in the context of discrimination in education. The purpose of civil rights laws should be to protect students from discrimination. The state of Israel is not a student.

Israel has spent its entire existence justifying every questionable action as being in the name of the Jewish people. Apartheid in Israel is treated as necessary to protect Jews the same way apartheid in South Africa was treated as necessary to protect white South Africans. All criticism of apartheid in SA was treated as rabid anti-white racism the exact same way criticism of apartheid in Israel is treated as rabid anti-Semitism.

The longer we allowed Israel to play the "anti-Semitism" card when they violate human rights and international law, the longer the world's Jews will be endangered by the apartheid state screaming at the top of its lungs that it represents and exists to defend all Jews everywhere all the time. Equating Israel with the Jewish people has endangered Jews more than any other single factor since 1945. Israel as it exists as an apartheid state will always endanger Jews. Either Israel changes or ceases to exist, or Israel will continue to do all it can to drag the world's Jews down with it.

Oh, waaaah, boo-hoo, poor Hamas and their wanting to destroy Israel is finally getting obliterated.

We don't need this bill, and we don't need dumb comparisons to Nazis either. Maybe we can compare Israel wiping out Hamas to the Allies defeating the ACTUAL Nazis, huh???

Perhaps if such a comparison could reasonably be made.

If your loved ones had been on the receiving end of a colonial movement that sought to remove them from their homeland you'd also resist the invaders.

Palestinians have been subjected to genocide by Israel for decades. They have tried everything to make the world see that. Hamas is involved because the Palestinians were out of options then Hamas started using Palestinian citizens as meat shields so that was a grave mistake.

I mean, Israel is the country built on the premise that one certain ethnic group deserves civil rights more than anyone from any other ethnic group. Israel states time and time again the old nationalist credo that my ethnic group can only be safe if your ethnuc group doesn't have as many rights. Hell, the Israeli need to discriminate against brown and black people even outweighs Israel's supposed love for Jews. Being a black Jew in Israel is a great way to get deported and to get slurs thrown at you.

For all Israel's claims of being nothing like the Third Reich, Israel very consistently sides with countries like Rhodesia and South Africa when their governments were whites-only. Hell, Israel was happy to sell weapons to those governments so they could shoot holes in those Africans which Israel considers subhuman. Israel, for some reason I've never seen a Zionist address, felt like it had way more in common with the white colonizers than with the indigenous people who lived there before Europeans came in and decided they deserved the land more. Hell, self-identified Neo Nazis tend to love Israel, because Israel tries, like them, to further the idea that an ethnic supremacist state is the only way to secure the safety of that ethnic group (Israel also gives a convenient place for actual anti-Semites to intimidate Jews to emigrate to).

 
Upvote

If only they didn't define everyone as kHamas.

UPVOTE

Right and as disgusting as that is, it's still likely protected speech. That's the whole point of the 1st amendment to protect disgusting speech that falls short of inciting violence or preventing people from engaging in free participation in society. We don't really need a 1st amendment right to express popular views when those views are endorsements of the government.

Dumb? What Israeli forces have been doing isn't that much different from what the Nazis were doing prior to setting up actual camps. Although, arguably the entirety of Gaza is one large concentration camp. Whether the argument ends there or continues depends a bit on whether the fig leaf of going after just Hamas in a highly concentrated population is sufficiently different to make it not a death camp.